Do not fine Bexley residents for exercising free speech rights

MIT bureaucrats are again threatening to fine Bexley Hall for rush
violations, including a "ROTC = murder" sign ["Fraternity rush slightly
down," Sept. 3] in the dormitory's courtyard. The MIT community should not
tolerate such an offensive violation of free speech.

Fortunately, it does not have to: the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act
prohibits restrictions on free speech even by private universities. Despite
assertions to the contrary, attempts to repress free speech by Anthony J.
Moulen '93, the Dormitory Council, DormCon's Judicial Committee and other
agents of MIT are illegal.

In Abramowitz v. Boston University (1987) the Massachusetts
Superior Court ruled that BU unlawfully interfered with students' rights to
free speech when it imposed numerous disciplinary actions upon students who
had hung signs bearing "BU Divest" and "End Apartheid" from their dormitory
windows. The judge stated that the banners "constitute political speech
which is entitled to the fullest possible measure of constitutional
protection." The judge also noted that students cannot sign their rights
away in rental agreements. The plaintiffs were awarded over $38,000 in
attorney's fees and other costs.

Authoritarians would have us believe that "special rules" apply during
rush, but our rights are not suspended during Residence/Orientation Week.
On the contrary, it is particularly important during rush that it is
impressed upon incoming students that MIT is a place where a wide variety
of differing -- and even unpopular -- views may be freely expressed.

Free speech does not depend upon a committee's whimsical interpretation
of some administrator's dreamed-up criteria, such as whether "a reasonable,
unbiased person could . . . say that [it was] intended to turn people
away," as Staff Assistant for Residence Programs Elliot S. Levitt '89 tries
to suggest.

Any attempt to dilute our rights by arguing that some rights are more
equal than others should be resisted. This type of reasoning is
unacceptable in a free society, and the MIT community must not remain
silent on this issue. We should oppose administrators who try to regulate
what we say and how we behave, and we should denounce attempts to punish
people for not speaking or acting in the "correct" way in public.